124

CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST.

Be near, through life and death,
As in that holiest night
Of hope, and joy, and faith-
Oh! clear and shining light!

Oh! star which led to Him, whose love
Brought down man's ransom free-
Where art thou?-'midst the host above,
May we still gaze on thee?

In Heaven thou art not set,

Thy rays earth may not dim;
Send them to guide us yet,

Oh! star which led to Him!

CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST.

"But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves ; for the wind was contrary."-St. Matthew, xiv. 24.

FEAR was within the tossing bark,
When stormy winds grew loud;
And waves came rolling high and dark,
And the tall mast was bow'd.

And men stood breathless in their dread,
And baffled in their skill

But One was there, who rose and said
To the wild sea, "Be still!"

And the wind ceased-it ceased!-that word
Pass'd through the gloomy sky;

The troubled billows knew their Lord,

And sank beneath his eye.

And slumber settled on the deep,
And silence on the blast,
As when the righteous falls asleep,
When death's fierce throes are past.
Thou that didst rule the angry hour,
And tame the tempest's mood-
Oh! send thy spirit forth in power,
O'er our dark souls to brood!

Thou that didst bow the billow's pride,

Thy mandates to fulfil

Speak, speak to passion's raging tide,

Speak and Say- "Peace, be still!"

CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

He knelt the Saviour knelt and pray'd,
When but His Father's eye

Look'd through the lonely garden's shade,
On that dread agony!

The Lord of all, above, beneath,
Was bow'd with sorrow unto death.

The sun set in a fearful hour,

The skies might well grow dim,
When this mortality had power

So to o'ershadow Him!

That He who gave man's breath might know,

The very depth of human wo.

He knew them all-the doubt, the strife,
The faint, perplexing dread,
The mists that hang o'er parting life,
All darken'd round His head!
And the Deliverer knelt to pray-
Yet pass'd it not, that cup, away.

It pass'd not-though the stormy wave
Had sunk beneath His tread;

It pass'd not-though to Him the grave
Had yielded up its dead.

But there was sent Him from on high

A gift of strength, for man to die.*

And was His mortal hour beset
With anguish and dismay?

-How may we meet our conflict yet,

In the dark, narrow way?

How, but through Him, that path who trod ?

Save, or we perish, Son of God!

"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."-St. Luke, xxii. 43.

126

THE SUNBEAM.

THE SUNBEAM.

THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall,
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope upon land and sea-
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and Ocean smiles-
Thou hast touch'd with glory his thousand isles—
Thou hast lit up the ships, and the feathery foam,
And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest-shades,

Thou art streaming on through their green arcades,
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow,
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look'd on the mountains-a vapour lay
Folding their heights in its dark array;
Thou breakest forth-and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flaine.

I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its casement fell,
And it laugh'd into beauty at that bright spell.

To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not, from thy pomp to shed
A tender light on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st through the dim church-aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bathed in a flood as of burning gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;
Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest,
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast,

Sunbeam of summer, oh! what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!
-One thing is like thee, to mortals given,-

The faith, touching all things with the hues of Heaven.

THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

IN sunset's light o'er Afric thrown,
A wanderer proudly stood
Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt's awful flood;

The cradle of that mighty birth,

So long a hidden thing to earth.

He heard its life's first murmuring sound,
A low mysterious tone;

A music sought, but never found

By kings and warriors gone;

He listen'd-and his heart beat high-
That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood
Rush'd burning through his frame,
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame,

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile,
Round those calm fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars :-across his soul
There swept a sudden change,
Ev'n at the pilgrim's glorious goal,
A shadow dark and strange,
Breathed. from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-And is this all?

No more than this!--what seem'd it now
First by that spring to stand?

A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathed his own mountain land!
Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track,
There wild sweet voices call'd him back.

128

THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

They call'd him back to many a glade,
His childhood's haunt of play,
Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanced away;

They call'd him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his fathers' hills and graves.

But darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,
Rose up a fearful vision, fraught
With all that lay between;

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoom!

Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?
His weary heart within him died
With yearnings for his home;
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.

He wept the stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

Ev'n on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years.

-Oh happiness! how far we flee

Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!*

THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

YES, thou hast met the sun's last smile,
From the haunted hills of Rome;
By many a bright Egean isle,

Thou hast seen the billows foam:

*The arrival of Bruce at what he considered to be the source of the Nile was followed almost immediately by feelings thus suddenly fluctuating from triumph to despondence. See his Travels in Abys

sinia.